Water Utility RFP Examples: Dallas, El Paso, SMUD

There is no single template for a water utility RFP, but you can learn a great deal from how large public utilities run theirs. Dallas Water Utilities, El Paso Water, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District all buy software through open, competitive procurement with published requirements and scored proposals. This guide walks through what each approach shows and how to turn those lessons into your own water utility RFP.

If you are writing a water utility RFP for the first time, the hardest part is knowing what "good" looks like. The most reliable reference is not a template you found online, it is how established public utilities actually run their procurements, because those documents are public and battle-tested. This guide looks at three, Dallas Water Utilities, El Paso Water, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and pulls out what a smaller utility can copy.

It is written for water and wastewater utilities serving roughly 3,000 to 100,000 connections that are about to buy billing, CIS, or broader operations software. The examples are large, but the principles scale down. What you are really borrowing is discipline: clear requirements, a fair process, and a scored decision. When you are ready to turn these lessons into a working document, pair this with a modern view of what utility billing software should be able to do.

What a Water Utility RFP Includes?

Do you know what a complete water utility RFP looks like before you start writing yours?

Every strong water utility RFP, regardless of the utility's size, covers the same core ground. The large public examples below are thorough about each of these, and that thoroughness is exactly what makes their proposals comparable:

That list is the backbone of the process. For the full how-to on writing each section, this page's companion, the utility billing software RFP guide, walks through them in detail. Here, the focus is on what the public examples teach.

Three Public Utility RFPs at a Glance

Which of these procurement models is closest to how your utility is set up to buy?

Each of these utilities runs an open, competitive process, but they differ in structure and service mix. The table maps what a smaller utility can take from each.

Dallas Water Utilities RFP: What to Learn

Is your RFP specific enough that two vendors would price it the same way?

Dallas Water Utilities is a department of the City of Dallas and one of the larger municipal water and wastewater providers in Texas. Its procurements run through the City of Dallas Office of Procurement Services as competitive sealed proposals, which means requirements are published, responses are formal, and scoring follows a stated method. The lesson for a smaller utility is precision: a large city cannot afford ambiguity, so its RFPs spell out requirements, submission format, and evaluation criteria in detail. That precision is what makes proposals comparable and a decision defensible, and it is copyable at any size. Because Dallas operates under Texas rules, its RFPs also reflect state regulatory requirements, the kind you can map from the Texas water utility regulations guide when you write your own.

El Paso Water Utilities RFP: Structure and Scope

Does your RFP account for every service you bill, or only the obvious one?

El Paso Water, governed by a Public Service Board, runs water, wastewater, stormwater, and reclaimed-water services, and is known for large-scale water reuse and desalination. That breadth is the lesson: its RFPs have to scope software against multiple services and rate structures at once, not just a single water bill. A smaller multi-service utility faces the same challenge in miniature. If you bill water, sewer, and stormwater, your RFP has to name each service, its rates, and how they appear on one bill, or vendors will underscope. Getting that scope right is easier when you understand the full range of utility billing services a modern platform can cover, so you can require the right ones.

Sacramento Municipal Utility District Procurement Approach

Are you inviting vendors that actually fit your size, or just posting and hoping?

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District, SMUD, is a community-owned electric utility district, not a water utility, but its procurement approach is instructive for any utility. As a public district, it runs a transparent supplier process with published solicitations and clear supplier registration, governed by an elected board. The takeaway is twofold: transparency protects the buyer, and a structured supplier process gets you qualified responders rather than random ones. Even at a smaller scale, publishing openly and inviting a shortlist of qualified vendors produces better proposals than posting alone. Build that shortlist deliberately from a comparison of the best utility billing software so your RFP reaches vendors that can actually serve a utility your size.

Turning These Examples Into Your Own RFP

Can you translate a big-city process into something your team can actually run?

You do not need a city procurement office to borrow these lessons. Scale the discipline, not the paperwork, with these steps.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are utility RFPs public documents?

Generally yes. Public and municipal utilities post RFPs through their procurement channels so any qualified vendor can respond, and awarded contracts are usually public record. That is why looking at how large utilities such as Dallas Water Utilities, El Paso Water, and SMUD structure their solicitations is a practical way to learn what a complete RFP looks like. You can find active solicitations on each utility's procurement or supply-chain page.

Can a small water utility copy a big city's RFP?

You can copy the structure and discipline, not the scale. A large city's RFP includes rigorous requirements, a formal submission format, and weighted scoring, all of which scale down to a small utility. What you should not copy is unnecessary complexity or volume that your team cannot manage. Take the backbone, size the requirements to your operation, and keep the same fairness and precision.

Where do utilities post their RFPs?

Utilities post RFPs on their own procurement or purchasing pages and, in many cases, on regional or national bid boards and procurement portals that vendors monitor. As a buyer, posting to your own page plus the databases vendors watch widens your pool, while directly inviting a shortlist of qualified platforms improves the quality of the proposals you receive.

Borrow the discipline, size it to your utility

The value in these examples is not their scale, it is their rigor. Dallas shows precision, El Paso shows multi-service scoping, and SMUD shows transparent, targeted procurement. Copy those habits, size them to your operation, and you will run an RFP that produces comparable proposals and a defensible choice. When you are ready to see what a modern platform brings to the table, review how a unified utility billing software platform handles the rates, integrations, and migration that your RFP will ask every vendor about.